﻿Cultural Competence

While veterans experiences are too diverse for a set of universally applicable cultural competence rules, there are key considerations and aspects of veteran experience that inform respectful and productive interactions with veterans. These considerations will be most useful for lawyers who remain conscious of them and apply or suspend them thoughtfully.

Thoughtful application or suspension of these considerations should be informed by an evaluation of a veteran's duration, nature, and recency of military service.

For example, a veteran who served twenty years without experiencing combat and who was separated twenty years ago may exhibit and react to veterans cultural norms differently than a recently discharged veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who left the service after four years and two combat deployments. A veteran who survived military sexual trauma may benefit more from prioritization of trauma-informed care than from application of veteran cultural principals. A veteran who was drafted may have a different affinity for government institutions than a veteran whose service was voluntary.

Don't Ask, "Are you a veteran?"

Instead ask, "Have you ever served in the Active Duty, Reserve, or National Guard Components of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, or Coast Guard?"

Social definitions of "veteran" may differ significantly between in peoples' minds. Differences between social and statutory definitions of veteran can be confusing.

Even experienced veterans advocates must look up differences between the various statutory definitions of "veteran."

Particularly for those who do not know or purposefully do not self-identify as veterans, asking about their experience instead of asking what they are can foster a more inclusive relationship.

Be Careful with "Thank You For Your Service"

Most veterans would rather be heard than thanked.

Some veterans appreciate being thanked for their service. Others do not.

Veterans do not universally consider their service a positive experience. Veterans may associate their service with a traumatic experience that rightly or wrongly causes shame, anger, pride, or contradictory combinations of feelings. Being thanked for doing something that causes shame or anger can exacerbate these feelings.

For recently returned veterans, "welcome home," or "glad to have you back," may be more suitable. For any veteran, "I'd like to learn about your experience if you feel comfortable discussing it," may more effectively connect an advocate and client without expressing judgment.

Have a Plan for War Stories

Many veterans have experienced telling friends or relatives a "war story," only to be met with silence, minimization, false equivalence, or judgment. Experiences made normal in military service may remain unthinkable or offensive for the general population, yet the opportunity to speak about these experiences may be important for a veteran or her case.

Be mindful of questions that imply judgment, but don't avoid questions whose answers are important. Consider how to encourage veterans to speak freely and how to then constructively react to hearing about killing, death, racism, sexism, homophobia, or other situations and attitudes that are unacceptable in society.

Never ask, "Have you ever killed anyone?"

See Veterans' Actions Through the Lens of Conditioning

Military experience ingrains actions and responses so that they become reflexive through thousands of hours of repetition over years of preparation and deployment. In this way, servicemembers are conditioned to overcome normal reluctance to perform unnatural or dangerous tasks like running towards gunfire or jumping from planes. "Then my training took over, " is a commonly invoked theme in descriptions of combat.

Veterans will have difficulty untraining some of the conditioned responses that served them well in the military. A common disagreement, normal physical contact and proximity, or perceived disorder or disobedience may all challenge a veteran's ability to control conditioned responses.

Advocates should be prepared to empathize without excusing unacceptable behaviors.

Take Suicide Seriously

Veterans kill themselves more often than non-veterans. Veterans also complete suicide attempts at rates higher than non-veterans.

Any advocate who serves low-income veterans will encounter a client with some level of suicidal ideation. Since encountering a suicidal veteran is a question of "when" and not "if," advocates must have a plan--and rehearse that plan--for what they should do when they encounter a suicidal veteran.

Veterans can call the crisis line to seek assistance during life crises, including when they are considering taking their life.

Help Veterans Understand That They Must Advocate For Themselves

The military trains members to always use the chain of command. Military hierarchies are explicit and assign clear superiors, peers, and subordinates. That one's superiors will act in the collective interest is assumed. Concern for individual interests is discouraged.

When veterans encounter less explicitly organized groups in civilian life, the lack of organizational clarity may cause stress. The veteran may seek to impose military-type organization or dependence upon institutions where it is inappropriate.

A veteran's comfort with hierarchy or dependence upon institutions may be at odds with client-centric treatment models that ask what a client wants instead of telling a client what they should want. The idea that a veteran should--or even could--appeal a VA decision, dispute an opposing party's characterization, or seek review of a judge's decision may seem selfish or may not even occur to a veteran. Advocates should not only help clients explore the full range of possible actions, but they should also identify and address a client's misperceptions about whether those possible actions are acceptable.